CALL FOR PAPERS
The 10th International Critical Management Conference
July 3rd-5th, 2017, Britannia Adelphi Hotel, Liverpool, UK
Stream: HRM: Powerful Player or Powerless Heretic?
Convenors:
Astrid Reichel, Full Professor in HRM, University of Salzburg, Austria
Elaine Farndale, Associate Professor in HRM, Penn State University, US
Thomas Schneidhofer, Full Professor in HRM, University of Seeburg Castle, Austria
Deadline for Submission: January 31st, 2017
Decision for acceptance to the: February 15th, 2017
Since its emergence, the U.S.-focused conceptualization of human resource management (HRM) has
emphasized the need to align HRM activities with organizational strategy. Strategic HRM, however, is
not only about aligning HRM practices with the organization’s strategic goals; it is also concerned with
the strategic role and strategic behaviour of practitioners working within the HR department (e.g.,
Armstrong, 2011; Boxall & Purcell, 2008; Lengnick-Hall & Lengnick-Hall, 1988). Strategic integration in
this respect involves HR specialists being integrated into the organization’s strategic planning activities
and being part of powerful groups, setting the long-term direction for the organization (Brandl, Reichel,
& Mayrhofer, 2008; Brewster & Larsen, 1992). In order for HRM alignment with organizational strategy
to be successful, members of the HR department need to have the authority to gain access to strategic
decision-making processes, or – as stressed by emergent views on strategy – be able to influence
strategic decisions informally.
Despite the obvious connection between issues of power and the HR department’s involvement in
strategic decision-making, HRM scholars rarely engage in such discussions. The literature revolves
primarily around issues of vertical and horizontal fit between organizational and HRM strategy, and
between HRM strategy and HRM practices respectively, culminating in a discussion of firm performance
outcomes (Paauwe & Boon, 2009).
While the strategic HRM field rarely uses the term ‘power’, there appears to be an implicit assumption
of power being embedded in HR departments, which allows them to participate in shaping
organizational (HRM) strategies. Yet there is another group of scholars that severely questions the
authority and influence of the HR department in organizations. Very soon after the emergence of ‘HRM’,
critical voices were raised about this (alleged) new concept. Their critique centered (and remains) on the
notion that powerful HR practitioners who have a ‘seat at the table’ and influence strategic decisions are
rather the exception than the rule (Hammonds, 2005). There is a clear gap between the rhetoric around
the essential role of HRM for delivering ‘resourceful’ humans and the reality that HR departments face,
especially in terms of strategic contribution. Despite the centrality assigned to HRM activities (in rhetoric
at least), HR departments often experience marginality in practice (Gowler & Legge, 1984; Noon, 1992)
and have been reported to be among the lowest status departments holding the least power in
organizations (Guest & King, 2004; Kelly & Gennard, 2001). It might be argued that HRM allegedly acts
against its own objective interests; a phenomenon labelled as ‘power as domination’ (Fleming and
Spicer, 2007), based on the relationship between the social field and habitus, the construction of HRM
and its preferences in relation to the ongoing production of power (Akram, Emerson, & Marsh, 2015).
The landscape of these two camps, however, largely rests on assumptions of either powerful players or
powerless heretics because theoretically-sound empirical studies of HR departments’ and HR
practitioners’ power are scarce. Especially given that the HR department – due to the resources it is
specialized in – might be different from other organizational functions, general theories on subunit,
positional and personal power and findings related to other organizational functions might not be
directly transferable. This is mainly because of human resources differing greatly from most other
resources (Collings & Wood, 2009), i.e. human beings have a variety of needs and motives for being
productive in the workplace. Motivation, learning, and health needs, for example, make people less
predictable and more complex to manage than other – especially tangible – resources.
In many countries, personnel management’s history started as welfare work, clearly stressing the
human side of HRM (Kaufman, 2007). With the emergence of HRM, however, performance (rather than
welfare) gained dominance. According to the prevalent shareholder orientation in the U.S. where the
notion of HRM originated, the only way for the HR department to gain legitimacy was to prove an ability
to influence organizational performance directly and positively. The contrast between the welfare and
performance orientations manifests itself as role ambiguity (Foote & Robinson, 1999; Thurley, 1981).
While mainstream scholars in the 1990s and early 2000s attempted to prove empirically the influence of
best HRM practices, best bundles of HRM practices, or the fit between HRM practices and contingencies
on organizational performance, there are others who plead for a social science (Watson, 2010) or a
socially-embedded perspective (Kochan, 2007) that emphasizes advocating the social contract between
employees and employer. Given that many attempts to show the impact of HRM on performance were
unsuccessful (Wright, Gardner, Moynihan, & Allen, 2005); there may be other ways for HRM to gain
legitimacy and power. The development of the idea that HRM may be understood as a discourse and a
set of practices – with reference to Foucault (1982) – could be fruitful in this respect (Townley, 1993).
Furthermore, a Bourdieu-inspired perspective on HRM as a field-within-fields (Emirbayer & Johnson,
2008) could be helpful to explore the HR department’s relative position in the social space, and
especially its position within the field of power (Bourdieu, 1996).
While research on HRM and power is generally scarce, there are even fewer studies that consider recent
developments related to power discussing the internal and external context or HR-specific
developments. Contextual developments include new forms of organizing summed up in the term ‘postbureaucracy’ (Heckscher, 1994): the need for empowered, functionally-flexible and multi-skilled
employees, who are able to deal with a high degree of uncertainty, and organizations that show blurred
boundaries, making heavy use of peripheral work and outsourcing (Johnson, 2009). The permeation of
our lives by technology, possibly the most influential and fastest trend in recent years, has added
significantly to the palette of imaginable ways of working. Crowdwork, as a form of digital outsourcing
that can be used for tasks ranging from repetitive to highly innovative, further adds to delimitation,
fragmentation and flexibility for requestors and workers (Ellmer, 2015). For such post-bureaucratic
scenarios, we do not yet understand whether traditional power relations are reproduced or are
fundamentally different, and if potential changes lead to an increase or decrease in the HR department’s
legitimacy. Recent research in other areas shows that practice theory is capable of explaining such
dynamics (Bjerregaard & Klitmoller, 2016), showing how actors “interact with, construct and draw upon
the social and physical features of context in the everyday activities that constitute practice”
(Jarzabkowski, Matthiesen, & Van de Ven, Andrew, p. 288).
The rise of technology also enables the HR-specific trend of digital HRM: the conscious and directed
support of or the full use of web-technology-based channels for implementing HRM strategies, policies
and practices (Ruel, Bondarouk, & van der Vald, 2006). There are some initial indications that HR
department power and the use of electronic HRM are positively related (Parry, 2011) but the
mechanisms behind this relationship are unclear.
Another HR-specific trend is the – especially among practitioners – very popular HR service delivery
framework in which the HR function is organized as business partners, shared service centers and
centers of excellence. Since a role as a strategic partner forms part of this ‘three legged stool model’,
positive power impact seems to be pre-programmed, however, Wright (2008) shows that the positive
relationship between having HR business partners and power is more complex than this. It might not be
HR as a function that benefits from potential positive power effects because these business partners
seem not to associate themselves as HR people.
Finally, a trend that in part seems to counter most of these developments is the growing popularity of
sustainability. Sustainable HRM represents the social dimension of sustainability (Ehnert, 2008) and,
thus, offers a way to gain legitimacy by not obeying the shareholder value orientation, but instead
focusing on the social contract between employee and employer.
Against this general backdrop, we invite papers that address pertinent questions with respect to the
power of the HR department. We are especially interested in three areas of questions:



What role does the HR department play in the organisations’ ‘orchestra’? How
powerful/powerless, dominating/dominated, or orthodox/heretic are HR departments vis-á-vis
other functional departments?
How do HR managers deal with their role ambiguity? Do they focus on the business case or do
they concentrate on arguments derived from a socially-embedded perspective? What
consequences arise for their relative power within the organisation?
What are the consequences for the HR department arising from new forms of work and
employment and HR specific trends? Do they lead to more or less power within the
organisation?
These examples are not exhaustive, and we also welcome empirical papers based on novel or sound
theoretical bases demonstrating a strong link between theory and empirical work on this theme.
Submission instructions: Abstracts (minimum 500 words, maximum 1000 words [without references
and tables], A4 paper, single spaced, 12point font) should be submitted to [email protected] AND
[email protected] by January, 31st 2017.
References
Akram, S., Emerson, G., & Marsh, D. 2015. (Re-)Conceptualizing the third face of power: insights from
Bourdieu and Foucault. Journal of Political Power, 8(3): 345–362.
Armstrong, M. 2011. Armstrong’s handbook of strategic human resource management (5th ed.).
Philadelphia: Kogan Page.
Bjerregaard, T., & Klitmoller, A. 2016. Conflictual practice sharing in the MNC: a theory of practice
approach. Organization Studies, 37(9): 1271–1295.
Bourdieu, P. 1996. The state nobility: elite schools in the field of power. Stanford: Stanford University
Press.
Boxall, P., & Purcell, J. 2008. Strategy and human resource management (2nd ed.). Houndsmills:
Palgrave Macmillan.
Brandl, J., Reichel, A., & Mayrhofer, W. 2008. The influence of social policy practices and gender
egalitarianism on strategic integration of female HR directors. International Journal of Human
Resource Management, 19(11): 2113–2131.
Brewster, C., & Larsen, H. H. 1992. Human resource management in Europe: evidence from ten
countries. International Journal of Human Resource Management, 3(3): 409–434.
Collings, D. G., & Wood, G. 2009. Human Resource Management: a critical approach. In G. Wood & D. G.
Collings (Eds.), Human Resource Management: A critical introduction: 1–16. London: Routledge.
Ehnert, I. 2008. Sustainable Human Resource Management: a conceptual and exploratory analysis
from a paradox perspective. Berlin et al: Physica Verlag.
Ellmer, M. 2015. The digital division of labor: socially constructed design patterns of Amazon Mechanical
Turk and the governing of human computation labor. Momentum quarterly, 4(3): 147–204.
Emirbayer, M., & Johnson, V. 2008. Bourdieu and organizational analysis. Theory & Society, 37(1): 1–44.
Fleming, P., & Spicer, A. 2007. Contesting the corporation: struggle, power and resistance in
organizations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Foote, D., & Robinson, I. 1999. The role of the human resources manager: strategist or conscience of the
organisation? Business Ethics: A European Review, 8: 88–98.
Foucault, M. 1982. The subject and power. Critical Inquiry, 8(4): 777–795.
Gowler, D., & Legge, K. 1984. The meaning of management and the management of meaning: A view
from social anthropology. In M. J. Earl (Ed.), Perspectives on management: A multidisciplinary
analysis. London: Oxford University.
Guest, D., & King, Z. 2004. Power, innovation and problem-solving: The personnel managers’ three steps
to heaven? Journal of Management Studies, 41(3): 401–423.
Hammonds, K. H. 2005. Why we hate HR. Fast Company, 97: 40.
Heckscher, C. 1994. Defining the post-bureaucratic type. In C. Heckscher & A. Donnellon (Eds.), The postbureaucratic organization. New perspectives on organizational change: 14–62. London: Sage.
Jarzabkowski, P., Matthiesen, J., & Van de Ven, Andrew H. Doing which work? A practice approach to
institutional pluralism. In T. B. Lawrence & Suddaby, R., Leca, B. (Eds.), Institutional work: Actors
and agency in institutional studies of organization: 284–316. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Johnson, P. 2009. HRM in changing organizational contexts. In G. Wood & D. G. Collings (Eds.), Human
Resource Management: A critical introduction: 19–37. London: Routledge.
Kaufman, B. E. 2007. The development of HRM in historical and international perspective. In P. Boxall, J.
Purcell & P. Wright (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Human Resource Management: 19–47. Oxford
et al.: Oxford University Press.
Kelly, J., & Gennard, J. 2001. Power and influence in the boardroom: the Role of the Personnel / HR
Director. New York: Routledge.
Kochan, T. 2007. Social legitimacy of the HRM profession: a US perspective. In P. Boxall, J. Purcell & P.
Wright (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Human Resource Management: 599–619. Oxford et al.:
Oxford University Press.
Lengnick-Hall, C. A., & Lengnick-Hall, L. M. 1988. Strategic human resource management: A review of
literature and a proposed typology. Academy of Management Journal, 13: 454–470.
Noon, M. 1992. HRM: a map, model or theory? In P. Blyton & P. Turnbull (Eds.), Reassessing Human
Resource Management: 16–32. London: Sage.
Paauwe, J., & Boon, C. 2009. Strategic HRM: a critical review. In G. Wood & D. G. Collings (Eds.), Human
Resource Management: A critical introduction: 38–54. London: Routledge.
Parry, E. 2011. An examination of e-HRM as a means to increase the value of the HR function.
International Journal of Human Resource Management, 22(5): 1146–1162.
Ruel, H., Bondarouk, T., & van der Vald, M. 2006. The contribution of e-HRM to HRM effectiveness.
Employee Relations, 29(3): 280–291.
Thurley, K. 1981. Personnel Management in the UK: a case for urgent treatment. Personnel
Management, 13(8): 24–29.
Townley, B. 1993. Foucault, power/knowledge, and its relevance for human resource management.
Academy of Management Journal, 18(3): 518–545.
Watson, T. J. 2010. Critical social science, pragmatism and the realities of HRM. International Journal of
Human Resource Management, 21(6): 915–931.
Wright, C. 2008. Reinventing human resource management: Business partners, internal consultants and
the limits to professionalization. Human Relations, 61(8): 1063–1086.
Wright, P. M., Gardner, T. M., Moynihan, L. M., & Allen, M. R. 2005. The relationship between HR
practices and firm performance: Examining causal order. Personnel Psychology, 58(2): 409–446.